Although the reliability of Manchester Metrolink continues to be on the up the latest figures recently released have shown that punctuality between 1st and 28th April was considerably down from the previous period. There doesn’t seem to be any particular reason for this downturn with only a few major disruptions reported but KeolisAmey Metrolink have said that they will be focusing on improving punctuality in the next period.
This is period 1 of the year (with the year split into 13 four week periods starting from 1st April) and the overall network punctuality was at 91.9% – down from 95.8% in period 13. Punctuality is measured by trams departing less than two minutes late according to the timetable and the Bury line was worst affected during these four weeks with just 89.4% of trams adhering to this measure. The Oldham & Rochdale line was also below average with 90.1% with the best performing lines being Altrincham (94.9%), East Didsbury (94.6%) and Eccles/MediaCityUK (94.5%).
The good news, however, is that reliability went up to 99.48% across the network (period 13 = 99.29%). This relates to the number of planned miles operated and across all lines it was fairly consistent ranging from a low of 99.2% (Eccles/MediaCityUK) to a high of 99.6% (Bury, East Didsbury and Oldham & Rochdale).
The reason given for the improvement in reliability is because of “better asset reliability and effective management of third party disruptions”. We think this means that the trams and related infrastructure were more reliable and that any disruptions caused by factors outside of Metrolink’s control were able to be dealt with in a better way.
The next period’s aims will be to improve punctuality, reducing car to tram incidents and planning for major events. Unfortunately with the recent disruption caused by the overhead issue at Victoria whether this will be possible remains to be seen.
* As always all the latest stats line-by-line are available on the TfGM website.